Friday, December 02, 2011
“I’m going to show you what yum-yum is…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of the regrettable stigmas about Academy Awards is that they are more often than not handed out to serious performances — portrayals in comedy films are criminally overlooked. There are exceptions, of course: Clark Gable’s triumph in It Happened One Night and James Stewart’s trophy for The Philadelphia Story while on the distaff side you have Claudette Colbert (also for Night) and Judy Holliday’s winning turn in Born Yesterday. (I’m sure there are others — these just came off the top of my head.) You’ll also find a lot of comedic accomplishments in the supporting actor and actress categories, presumably because of the old trope about “second bananas” and “comic relief.” But, as a general rule, comedy need not apply: Oscar-winning performances are defined by big, serious showcases (often with noble or suffering characters) that a certain master thespian might describe as “ACTING!”
In February 1942, Gary Cooper was handed one of his two competitive Oscar statuettes (he also would win an honorary Academy Award in 1961) for Sergeant York — a dramatization of the real-life story of Alvin C. York, the most decorated American soldier of World War I. I’ve always felt that the reason Coop was “decorated” with such a statuette was due to the movie’s enormous popularity (it was the highest grossing film of 1941) and while he gives a solid, dependable performance, I’ve always been partial to his comedic showcase from another film released that same year. In fact, it premiered in theaters 70 years ago on this date, five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ball of Fire, once described by one of its screenwriters, Billy Wilder, as a “silly picture,” nevertheless features a masterful comic turn by an actor whose limited thespic abilities often disappeared through the magic of a movie screen.
In Ball of Fire, Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, one of eight lexicographers living in a New York residence and working on an encyclopedia project funded by the daughter (Mary Field) of Daniel S. Totten, inventor of the electric toaster. Potts and his colleagues have been hard at work on their encyclopedia for nine years, and it looks as if construction will continue for another three — much to the dismay of Miss Totten, who will have to pay for the “overruns” out of her own pocket. An encounter with a garbage man (Allen Jenkins) demonstrates why there is still so much to do — the sanitation engineer’s creative use of slang demonstrates to Potts (the group’s grammarian) that his own article for the encyclopedia is hopelessly outdated, and that he will have to research the modern vernacular by visiting “the streets, the slums, the theatrical and allied professions.” He encounters several people — a newsboy, a college student, a pool hall bum — and asks for their help in preparing his treatise on slang.
Later at a nightclub, Potts makes the acquaintance of Katherine “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), a sultry chanteuse whom he also wants to participate in his discussions, but she is markedly cool to his proposal. She later changes her mind and turns up at the doorstep of the encyclopedia men, but only because she has been advised by a pair of hoodlums, Duke Pastrami (Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (Ralph Peters), to “take it on the lam”; both men are in the employ of mobster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), who’s being questioned by the district attorney about his complicity in a gangland murder, and who would like nothing better than to hear Sugarpuss’ side of the story. The professors’ think tank will provide a perfect hideout, even though O’Shea’s breezy insouciance has a disruptive influence on their daily routine, much to the chagrin of their stern housekeeper Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard). Bragg’s ultimatum to Potts that Sugarpuss leave or she will results in a confrontation between “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss — and when Potts confesses a rather strong attraction to the nightclub singer she uses that revelation to her advantage, reciprocating similar feelings and demonstrating to her would-be paramour the definition of “yum-yum” by kissing him.
Potts’ infatuation goes full speed ahead to the purchase of an engagement ring and proposes to Sugarpuss — even though he’s got a rival in gangster Lilac, who entertains similar notions (mostly for convenience's sake, insuring that a wife can’t testify against her husband). When Joe learns of Potts’ intentions, he persuades Sugarpuss to play along — that way she’s guaranteed safe passage out of New York (under the watchful eye of the authorities) and can join Lilac in neighboring New Jersey, where they’ll tie the knot. A mishap with the professors’ automobile en route necessitates a stopover in a small Joisey town, where at an inn O’Shea learns (through a mix-up in bungalow door numbers) that Potts is deadly serious about his passion for her. She begins to see the bashful goof in an entirely different light, but before she can act on this, Lilac and his goons show up, spelling out the story for Potts and the other professors before collecting Sugarpuss and continuing on their way.
Back home in New York, Potts is determined to put the sordid chapter behind him until it is pointed out that in returning his engagement ring, O’Shea has slipped him the rock she received from Lilac. To add insult to injury, Miss Totten arrives with her assistant Larsen (Charles Lane) to announce that due to the unfavorable newspaper publicity generated by Potts’ misadventures she is canceling the encyclopedia project — and that's interrupted by the arrival of Pastrami and Asthma, who have been ordered by Lilac to “rub out” the group unless Sugarpuss agrees to marry Joe. Elated that Sugarpuss and Joe still aren't attached, Potts and the others are able to subdue the two hit men with brains (not brawn) and ride to O’Shea’s rescue (thanks to their garbage man pal’s truck) to save her from her nasty fate. “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss will live happy ever after, thanks to his expert application of “yum-yum” as the movie concludes.
Scripted by Wilder and Charles Brackett, Ball of Fire’s opening titles also credit Wilder and Thomas Monroe with the film’s “original story” — which is a teensy bit of a stretch, insomuch as Wilder cribbed the idea from the classic fairy tale of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” (Wilder got the idea while he was still living in Germany, and even when director Howard Hawks picked up on the reference Billy warned him that he wouldn’t get a shared credit.) Granted, there are eight “dwarfs” as the film begins (they’re even shown marching through a NYC park as if they should be singing “Heigh Ho”) but that’s because the character of Bertram Potts is technically “Prince Charming” — so the personages of Professors Gurkakoff (Oscar Homolka), Jerome (Henry Travers), Magenbruch (S.Z “Cuddles” Sakall), Robinson (Tully Marshall), Quintana (Leonid Kinskey), Oddly (Richard Haydn) and Peagram (Aubrey Mather) fill in for Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, etc. A publicity photo of the seven character actors was even taken in front of a poster for the Disney film and the film is advertised prominently on a marquee in a scene where Cooper’s Potts talks with a wiseacre newsboy (Tommy Ryan) outside a theater.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned Wilder and Brackett to write the vehicle for Coop because he was disappointed that the films he made with Cooper (such as The Real Glory and The Westerner) rarely did as well at the box office as those films in which the actor was lent out to other studios. So the film was tailor-made for Coop’s “Longfellow Deeds”-type persona, but finding a suitable leading lady took some additional time. Ginger Rogers was the first choice, but she wasn’t interested and Carole Lombard said “no way” as well; both Betty Field and Lucille Ball were tested for the part and while Ball appeared to have the inside track, Barbara Stanwyck ultimately won the role when Cooper suggested her, having worked with her in that same year’s Meet John Doe. Coop also was reunited with his York director Hawks, whom Goldwyn wasn't particularly fond of (Hawks wound up with a $100,000 payday for the film) but tolerated because of the director’s admiration for the script. It was familiar territory for Howie, in that he had helmed a similar film about a stuffy professor brought down to earth in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby (and he would later revisit the premise in both Fire’s 1948 remake, A Song is Born, and Monkey Business in 1952.)
Being a Goldwyn production, the producer naturally pulled out all the stops and obtained the services of many of Hollywood’s master craftsmen (and women): Gregg Toland was cinematographer, Perry Ferguson the art director, and Edith Head designed that drop-dead gorgeous gown that Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss wears in her nightclub act. One of the highlights of Ball of Fire is Babs’ rendition (though Martha Tilton dubbed her vocals) of “Drum Boogie,” backed by Gene Krupa and his Orchestra; Gene later obliges with an encore of the number accompanied by matchbox sticks and a matchbox. Even though Stanwyck’s voice is not her own, she’s able to reach back to her “Ruby Stevens” chorus gal days and do some impressive dance moves with those fabulous Stanwyck gams.
I’ve never considered myself a Barbara Stanwyck fanatic but Ball of Fire is my all-time favorite of her films; her finely modulated performance as the alternately hard-boiled and tender Sugarpuss was nominated for a best actress trophy and to be honest, I think she was robbed. (Stanwyck wasn’t as lucky in the Oscar sweepstakes as her male co-star — she was nominated on four separate occasions but had to make do with an honorary statuette in 1982.) Babs’ background as a one-time Ziegfeld gal makes her portrayal of O’Shea authentic, and her personal, genuine affability (She was one of the most well-liked movie actresses in the history of Hollywood) invests an unshakable admiration into the character, something that I don’t think would have resulted if the brassier Ginger Rogers has been cast in the part. (I like how David Thomson described Babs in this movie as “saucy, naughty and as quick as a shortstop.”) We’re just as captivated by Sugarpuss’ charms as the seven professors (and of course, “Pottsy”); the scene where she teaches the men to conga is utterly beguiling, and like her fairy tale counterpart Snow White, she brings a great deal of sunshine and a sense of fun to their existence in what one of the profs calls “the mausoleum.”
The chemistry between Stanwyck and Cooper’s characters is one of the best in any screwball comedy. What always has fascinated me about Cooper is that while his acting range may have seemed limited to a casual observer, he had a certain captivation that always came across in his screen performances. Coop was generally most comfortable in Westerns, but even though he was a little flummoxed by Wilder and Brackett’s rapid-fire, intellectual dialogue he’s most convincing as the scholar who’s spent his entire existence isolated from the world. His Bertram Potts is a sweetly naïve “big kid” much like Cooper’s Longfellow Deeds (but far less dangerous, I think) and watching Sugarpuss coax him out of his shell is a delight from start to finish. She’s his fast track to his ultimate sexual awakening (particularly when he tells her that being around her requires him to apply cold water to the back of his neck), which culminates with his understanding of what constitutes “yum-yum” and his tacit admission: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind…unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.” But once Potts is brought up to speed on the language of love, he’s every bit as potent to O’Shea (who finds herself falling out of love with the despicable Lilac); she must also depend on the cold water treatment herself when things get steamy. At that point in their relationship, she knows there’s no turning back: “I love him because he's the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss…the jerk…” (By the time the movie calls it a wrap, however, her “Crabapple Annie” has that last part well in hand.)
Ball of Fire boasts a positively splendid supporting cast — particularly the vets who essay Potts’ encyclopedia colleagues, who transcend the usual stereotypes of movie intellectuals being dry as dirt by exhibiting a real playfulness (one of my favorite scenes in the film is when Potts and the “dwarves” listen to Oddly’s recollection of his marriage, which breaks out in a lovely rendition of “Genevieve”). Fire was Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fave Dan Duryea’s second feature film appearance and I like to think that if he had had a few more films under his belt, he could have played Joe Lilac (Duryea’s best bit in Fire is when he imitates Cooper’s thumb-licking-and-rubbing-it-on-the-sight tic from Sergeant York, cracking “I saw me a picture last week”) but Dana Andrews does very well in the part, supplementing the escapist comedy nature of the film with the proper menace (Andrews’ phone conversation with Cooper as Stanwyck’s “Daddy” is hysterical but it works because Dana plays it perfectly straight). I got a particular kick out of seeing a couple of other TDOY favorites in Elisha Cook, Jr. (as a waiter who tells Potts that Sugarpuss is “root, zoot and cute…and solid to boot”) and serial/B-Western stalwart Addison Richards as the D.A. determined to bring the hammer down on Lilac.
In addition to Stanwyck’s acting nomination, Ball of Fire also received nods for best scoring of a dramatic (!) picture and best sound recording…with the final nomination going to Monroe and Wilder’s “original story.” It was the movie on which Wilder decided he wanted to do more behind the camera than just provide the words; his directing ambition was encouraged fully by Hawks, who allowed Billy to study and pick up some pointers during the film’s production. The movie is an odd one in Wilder’s oeuvre because it’s devoid of the frank, pungent cynicism prevalent in many of the writer-director’s works, but as Wilder himself observed: “It was a silly picture. But so were audiences in those days.” Hey…if enjoying the entertaining exhilaration that Ball of Fire provides with each passing year makes me silly, then I guess nobody’s perfect.
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Labels: 40s, Cooper, Disney, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, L. Ball, Lombard, Oscars, Stanwyck, Wilder
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Monday, August 08, 2011
Nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me
By Edward Copeland
Sometimes you have to wonder what made some of the pre-Code Hollywood classics such as Night Nurse, which turns 80 years old today, so shocking. Sure, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell spend an inordinate amount of time in various states of undress, but the subject matter doesn't approach the lurid level of a Baby Face (also with Stanwyck) or Red-Headed Woman with Jean Harlow. Maybe it's because even then it raised questions about the motives of some involved in the health care system or the practice of medicine. Whatever the reason, what's most important about Night Nurse is that just 20 years shy of being a century old, it remains a damn good movie.
Directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Night Nurse begins in an almost comic tone before it takes a suspenseful turn in its second half. Wellman brings a lot of nice touches to the film visually. It opens from the point-of-view of an ambulance speeding through city streets on its way to a hospital's emergency's room.
Ambulance is spelled in reverse inside the driver's window. They were aiming to be reversed as many used to be so they would read correctly in other vehicles' rear-view mirrors, only they have it backward and it's written forward on the front of the ambulance. As the injured man is unloaded, the orderly guesses correctly that he's been in a car wreck. "Cement truck hit one of those Baby Austins," the ambulance driver tells him as they wheel him into the hospital. The orderly comments that you'd never catch him in one of those little cars, but the ambulance driver corrects him that the injured man was driving the cement truck. As they move through the hall, the pass a nervous father-to-be letting go of his wife's hand as she heads to the delivery room. A nurse places a screen around another man in the crowded ward and a woman asks her, "Why can't my son have a screen?" The nurse explains that it's against the rules. The woman points out that she just placed one around the other man and the nurse explains that's because that man is dying.
The camera finally moves past all the chaos as we see sharp dark shoes entering the office of Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis), the superintendent of nurses to apply for a nursing job. Her name is Lora Hart and she's played by the great Barbara Stanwyck. Miss Dillon is a bit of a harridan, barely taking her eyes off what she's doing to give Lora much attention. Her education doesn't impress her and she asks her why in the world she would want to be a nurse. Lora tries not to laugh as she notices that the woman has a habit of making a grotesque throat-clearing sound ever few seconds. "Nursing people has always seemed liked a second nature to me," Lora tells the superintendent of nurses, but she seems less than impressed and dismisses her out of hand. As Lora marches out of the woman's office, she makes certain to stop at the door and clear her throat with a smile before she leaves.
When she's exiting the hospital, a preoccupied man bumps into her, spilling the contents of Lora's purse and falling on his ass. Lora takes the stance that he was trying to be fresh with her, but he gets up and reassures her that isn't the case. He introduces himself as Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger) and asks why she was
there. She tells him she had hoped to get a job as a nurse, but that Miss Dillon didn't seem interested. Bell offers to take her back and asks her name. When she shares that her name is Lora Hart, Bell replies, "Hart — that's a good name for a nurse." Lora, escorted by Dr. Bell, returns to Miss Dillon's office. When she sees Lora with the doctor, the superintendent gets tongue-tied, but Bell doesn't give Dillon much of a chance to say anything anyway, just tells her to treat Miss Hart well and find a place for her and perhaps she can help improve things around then. He wishes Lora good luck and departs, leaving her to have a real interview with Miss Dillon. While Miss Dillon's attitude toward Lora improves slightly, mainly she wants to know why she didn't tell her before that she was acquainted with Dr. Bell. She explains that she will begin work as a probationary nurse, which means she will live in a dorm and have a curfew (in bed with lights out by 10). Because she'll just be on probation on first, she must pay strict attention to the rules or she could be let go. "Rules mean something — you'll be told about them later," Miss Dillon tells her.The superintendent sees another probationary nurse passing and calls out, "Maloney." Maloney (Joan Blondell) enters and Miss Wilson introduces her to Lora and says since Maloney (the film never gives her a first name,
just the initial B.) doesn't have a roommate, she should get Lora a uniform and show her the ropes. At first, Maloney isn't very friendly, seeing any new probationary nurse as competition, even handing her a uniform several sizes too large at first, but soon the girls hit it off and Maloney warns her about the different types of men to watch out for, such as interns. Just as she says that, an intern named Eagan (Edward Nugent) sticks his head in the dressing room and acts generally obnoxious. Maloney makes no attempt to hide her disdain. "Sometimes I don't like you, Maloney," Eagan tells her. "I wish I could find a way to make that permanent," she replies. What do you say newcomer?" he asks Lora. "Two-nothin' in favor of the lady," Lora concludes. Eagan knows when he's licked and leaves. "Take my advice and stay away from interns," Maloney reiterates. "They're like cancer. The disease you know, but there ain't no cure."It must be said that while Night Nurse would barely be classified as a B picture by most at the time it was made, the movie not only surpasses that level in terms of quality, but in Wellman's distinctive touches and Barney McGill's cinematography. For instance, in one particularly effective sequence, Maloney and Lora must assist a surgery as one of their final tasks before they can take the oath and be full-fledged nurses. Lora, as we will learn, can be a bit skittish (though the growth of her strength marks the journey of both her character and the film). Maloney warns her that if she faints or messes up, she's done so hang on. They stage the scene in a large operating theater and Wellman films most of the sequence in overhead shots. The surgery doesn't go well and there's blood as the surgeon's try to save the man. Lora almost buckles, but Maloney gives her her hand. As the man dies, they show a series of almost ritualistic shots as the body gets slowly covered. The OR clears out but Lora lingers behind, waiting until the room has emptied to collapse to the floor which Wellman again captures in an overhead shot.
What's interesting is that while William A. Wellman had a reputation prior to Night Nurse (he did direct Oscar's first best picture (Wings) after all and would go on to make many more notable films), the other members of the creative team really didn't have that much else of note on their filmographies. McGill's only other significant films as a d.p. were Svengali starring John Barrymore and Michael Curtiz's The Cabin in the Cotton that kick-started Bette Davis' career. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Dora Macy (a pen name used by writer Grace Perkins) and written by Oliver H.P. Garrett who was prolific but only made noise as a co-writer on Manhattan Melodrama (with Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Duel in the Sun (with David O. Selznick and uncredited work by Ben Hecht) and Dead Reckoning (with four other men). On Night Nurse, additional dialogue was credited to Charles Kenyon, who was just as prolific as Garrett. His most recognizable credits were helping to adapt Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 and Robert Sherwood's play The Petrified Forest in 1936. Somehow though these people pooled together to produce crackling dialogue, memorable images and efficient storytelling out of a movie that most viewed as filler. It's a minor miracle.
Perhaps what makes Night Nurse one of those daring pre-Code pictures is that, while it never shows Lora or Maloney leading a loose lifestyle, the young single gals do sneak out of the dorm and come back in after curfew drunk. Presumably Maloney has dragged Lora out on a manhunting expedition since what type of mate
to pursue tends to be all Maloney talks about. In addition to interns being a no-no, she warns against doctors as well, saying that you'd just end up running their office while they chase other women. As for patients, for some reason Maloney thinks that "appendicitis cases are best." However, for Maloney, only one male is ideal. "There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough!" she says. "Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life and you'll be getting somewhere." Those conversations are for another time. Right now, the pie-eyed pals are more concerned with getting undressed
in the dark and climbing into bed without tipping off Miss Dillon that they'd broken curfew. That plan goes bust thanks to Eagan, who left a surprise under Lora's blanket — a skeleton from the anatomy class that causes Lora to let out a shriek. Maloney tells her to hurry and get under the covers and act asleep, in case Dillon comes in. Lora doesn't want to be that close to the bones, but she does it. Sure enough, Miss Dillon comes in and flips the lights on. Maloney tries to fake that she just woke them up but the superintendent throws back the blanket and exclaims, "I thought so" as she sees that Maloney still has part of her clothing on. The girls fear that a firing is coming, but instead as punishment Dillon assigns them to the night shift working with the worst cases that come in off the streets: drunks, beatings, etc. As she leaves them to get some sleep, Eagan drops by to taunt them and they yell at him. Lora continues to lack the nerve to sleep where the skeleton was, so Maloney lets her crawl into bed with her for the night.The "punishment" that Miss Dillon gives Lara and Maloney actually only serves to forward the plot. They only work there long enough to meet a new character who will play an important role going forward (and it's neither the drunk nor the intern helping to treat those coming in for help). A sharp-dressed man comes
staggering in, having lost some blood. Lora gets to work patching him up which necessitates cutting his shirt. "Hey! That's silk!" the man (Ben Lyon) objects. "That's how I knew you were a bootlegger," Lora tells him, but then she realizes his injury is a bullet wound. "That looks like it's a bullet wound!" Lora says. "Well, it's a cinch it's not a vaccination mark," he replies. By law, nurses are required to report all bullet wounds to the police, but the man begs her not to do it. Lora finds herself torn because she likes this nameless bootlegger. Maloney comes up and spots the bullet wound and tells them they have to report it — they can't risk their jobs before they even officially start them. "Maybe 56 bucks a week isn't much but it's 56 bucks," Maloney says. Eventually, Maloney gives in and she and Lora fix the bootlegger up and keep his secret. After that is when the operating room test comes and Lora and Maloney pass. The pals join the other probies and take the Florence Nightingale Pledge and become full-fledged nurses."I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care."
It's at this point that Night Nurse makes its pivot. Aside from the great opening, when we saw anonymous characters doing their work, Lora and Maloney patching up the bootlegger and the OR scene, we've really witnessed little in the way of the practice of medicine. That pledge the newly minted nurses took (at least as far as Lora is concerned — aside from a couple of brief appearances by Maloney, Joan Blondell mostly vanishes from the film, unfortunately) means something to them, It wasn't just a line that Lora was trying to pull on Miss Dillon when she told her that "nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me." Skittishness over
skeletons and blood aside, Lora has only grown stronger and she will need that strength for what she confronts next. At the hospital, she had assisted Dr. Bell in the treatment of two sick little girls, Desney and Nanny Richey (Betty Jane Graham, Marcia Mae Jones). For some reason though, their widowed mother (Charlotte Merriam) removed Bell from the case and took them home for
treatment there under a Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) and an ever-rotating staff of nurses who keep quitting or getting fired. Maloney currently holds the daytime shift and when the latest night nurse exits, Lora gets the job and hits it off with the children who are ecstatic, to their detriment, one falling to the floor in weakness over the excitement. The housekeeper Mrs. Maxwell (Blanche Frederici) enters to put a stop to it. Lora had been warned to be wary of the household staff, particularly Nick the chauffeur (Clark Gable, who got the role which originally was intended for James Cagney. However, when The Public Enemy hit so big earlier in 1931, the studio and Cagney agreed he shouldn't play such a small role as a hood now). Gable gets the most unintentionally funny introductions in the movie (or just about any movie). After Lora had been specifically warned about "Nick the chauffeur," when she encounters him and asks who he is he actually says in complete monotone, "I'm Nick — the chauffeur." The way that moment plays could only have been sillier if it had been followed by ominous organ music.
Lora attempts to find Mrs. Richey somewhere within the mansion to tell her what dire straits her children are in and finds that she appears to be either drunk or passed out 24 hours a day, usually on the arm of her equally inebriated boyfriend Mack (Walter McGrail). Often, the place overflows with many partying friends in a scene of bacchanalia. When Mrs. Richey nods off one time, Mack makes moves on Lora should Lora parries his pawing fairly well, but the first time she meets Nick is when he shows up and lays Mack out with a punch. Lora and Nick don't maintain a friendly relationship for long as she tells him she's calling a doctor. He warns her not to unless Dr. Ranger has given her orders to that effect. She ignores him and proceeds to the phone. Nick shouts that he runs this place, but Lora gets someone on the line so Nick knocks her out and carries her unconscious into another room.
The next day, Lora goes to see this Dr. Ranger to report what's going on, but it soon becomes clear to her that he's not particularly interested in the welfare of the children and she puts together what must be going on: The children must have a trust fund that will pass on to their tipsy mother if they die and they'll have Nick marry her and he and the doctor will steal the fortune. She threatens to report Ranger to the authorities. He
seems unconcerned, telling her she has no proof and to make such allegations will just end her career. Lora storms out and goes to see Dr. Bell who, to her surprise, agrees with everything she says but doesn't want to lift a finger to help her either since, even though he's long had suspicions about Ranger, "he is a colleague." Not much has changed in 80 years: Doctors always protect one another no matter how bad they know the other doctor is. Bell tries to put his inability to report Ranger off on "ethics." This really sets Lora off. "Oh, ethic, ethics. That's all I've heard in this business. Isn't there any humanity left? Aren't there any ethics about letting little babies be murdered?" she yells at him. Bell advises that if she really wants to help the children, she should go back and apologize to Ranger so she can keep working. Lora agrees, but first she stops for a soda and happens to run into the bootlegger and tells him her story. When he hears what Nick did, he offers to talk to a couple of guys to take care of him. Lora learns his name is Mortie and he promises that he's out of the bootlegging business now, but he agrees to help her anyway he can. The bootlegger would be more ethical than the doctors.Now, I won't tell you how Night Nurse resolves itself, but it packs so much into its running time that it's damn remarkable it all got squeezed in. Logically, Night Nurse shouldn't be the gem that it is, but lightning struck. Not the type that wins awards but the more important type of electricity — bolts that go off in one time period and continue to reverberate decades later. I do have to share a couple of other favorite moments before I wrap it up though. Wellman put so much effort into this programmer with the different way he set up shots and another of my favorites is the perspective he uses when Mack comes on to Lora again and she lays him out with a punch of her own. It almost looks like 3-D. Then, for comedy, we get to see Mack crawl on the floor to take refuge behind the bar.
Soon after that, Lora tries to physically drag Mrs. Richey so she can see how her daughter is but the drunken women isn't cooperating. Lora even drags her by the throat at one point until Mrs. Richey finally collapses on the floor, passed out. Lora tosses a bucket of ice water on her trying to wake her up to no avail. As she walks away, Lora almost give us some pre-Code profanity as she mutters, "You mothers." The young Stanwyck amazes and this was only her third year making movies and she also scored with another brilliant turn in 1931 in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman — and so many more and greater performances were still on the way.
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Labels: 30s, Bette, Blondell, Cagney, Capra, Curtiz, Gable, Harlow, Hecht, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Selznick, Shakespeare, Stanwyck, Wellman
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Tuesday, May 03, 2011
The world's been shaved by a drunken barber
By Edward Copeland
After a montage of workers in all walks of life set to tunes ranging from "Roll Out the Barrel" to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" that wraps with newborns in a nursery, we see men removing the sign from The Bulletin newspaper, including its motto, "A free press means a free people" and replacing it with THE NEW BULLETIN. The images would seem to be sending a warning (or at least ammunition for his critics) that Frank Capra was about to lean on his worst tendencies in Meet John Doe, which opened 70 years ago today, and Capra displays his weaknesses in the film, though frequently they get averted thanks to his sharp cast, led by the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck who in 1941 had one helluva year.
The newspaper building's sign isn't the only change afoot. A new managing editor named Henry Connell (the great James Gleason) has been handed the reins and his first duty requires him to clear out "the dead weight," which basically means firing a lot of the staff, 40 people total, including columnist Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck). She pleads her case for staying on, even offering to cut her $30 a week salary to $20 a week, since her mother (Spring Byington) and two sisters depend on her. Connell isn't moved since the paper doesn't need her column of "lavender and old lace." He was brought in to boost circulation and "wants fireworks." Connell tells Ann she
owes them a final column and then she can pick up her final check. Stanwyck, always good, but great as a brassy newspaper woman scorned, goes back to her office and tosses the column she'd written when the typesetter informs her it's a little short and makes up an entirely fabricated column about a letter she received from an unemployed man, so dispirited by what they "laughingly call a civilized world." She signs "his" letter John Doe, who blames slimy politics for unemployment and threatens to commit suicide by jumping off City Hall on Christmas Eve. In Ann's own commentary portion of the column she adds that in her opinion "the wrong people are jumping of roofs." Needless to say, Connell eats it up and gives it big play in the next day's paper starting a chain reaction among the populace and political leaders.Governor Jackson (Vaughan Glaser) and his associates are convinced that John Doe is a creation of the Bulletin's new owner, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), to make the governor look bad. The editor of competing newspaper The Daily Chronicle (Stephen Toombes) concurs that it's an old gag and promises to expose them. The town's mayor (Gene Lockhart) seems more upset that John Doe would pick his building for his suicide
leap. Connell's panicking because he wants to keep this thing going and find John Doe, but he's got people out and they can't even find Ann. When she finally turns up, she's completely honest about her fraud. Connell is prepared to admit that they were duped until The Chronicle runs a story accusing them of making it up. Ann sells him on the whole idea of hiring a John Doe so they don't prove the other paper right, provided she gets her job back with a raise. On the other hand, she shows him a document she's made up admitting she made it all up that she bets The Chronicle would pay her plenty to make them look like fools. Connell tells Ann they've already been besieged with job offers and marriage proposals for John Doe and the mayor practically wants to adopt him. Ann suggests John Doe columns through Christmas all about man's inhumanity to man. Connell wants to know where she thinks they'll find someone to assume the John Doe role. She happens to open the office door and finds the outer office overflowing with down-on-their-luck men all claiming to be John Doe. Connell's right hand man says, "Show me an American who can keep his mouth shut and I'll eat him."Forgive me for a brief, unrelated tangent. Having seen so many films from the eras of the 1930s and 1940s with their less-than-flattering portraits of the press and then compare it to that brief moment in the 1970s around the time of All the President's Men when journalists actually became the heroes of films and were viewed admirably and to now be stuck when cable news is a disgrace and what little real journalism remains dies slowly with the newspapers run by publishers who don't know what the hell they are doing and have behaved like chickens with their heads cut off for more than a decade, why aren't we getting any movies, serious, comic or satirical that really address the situation? State of Play came closest, though it seemed as if it were from another era, while Nothing But the Truth addressed a serious issue and ruined it with one of the most absurd plot twists I've seen. Surely, after these weeks when the NBC entertainment division has run its network and cable news divisions by giving Donald Trump ample air time to spread lies and veiled racism, some screenwriter can think of a movie out there — and I write these things as a former working journalist who is ashamed and disgusted by what's become of his former profession. I've digressed, back to Meet John Doe.
Most of the homeless, bums and tramps who parade into Connell's office fail to leave much of a positive impression on Ann, Connell or any of the other Bulletin employees — that is until he walks in. It's Gary Cooper. Of course, his name isn't really John Doe, but John Willoughby, though he was known as Long John Willoughby when he pitched in bush league baseball until an injury to his arm ended his possible Major League career and set him to riding the rails with a friend he made known only as The Colonel
(Walter Brennan). Cooper received his first Oscar nomination as best actor working for Capra on Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Cooper would win the Oscar in 1941 and Brennan would get his final nomination (3 wins out of 4 nominations in six years is something no one likely will ever match), but they weren't for Meet John Doe but Howard Hawks' Sergeant York. When Ann starts talking to Willoughby, she knows she's found her John Doe and Connell sets out to make the deal with him to be the face of daily columns and keep the suspense going until Christmas Eve as to whether he will go through with his plan to jump off City Hall. At one point during the conversation, John gets weak and faints because he hasn't eaten in awhile, so they bring some lunch up for both he and the Colonel. The delightful Colonel thinks all the plotting sounds like the work of "helots" and doesn't buy the argument the newspaper people try to sell John on that he would be improving the world. "You couldn't improve the world if a building was jumping on you," the Colonel declares. Connell explains the details of the deal to John. They will pay him $50 a week and put up in a hotel through Christmas Eve. On Dec. 26, they give him a train ticket out of town and pay to have his arm fixed. John insists that the surgery must be performed by "Bonesetter" Brown and he wants the Colonel to stay with him.They install John and the Colonel in a plush hotel suite (and make sure they have bodyguards not only to keep the public from John but to keep him from making an escape as well). When the duo enter the hotel room, both are offered a paper to read, but the Colonel wants no part of it. "I don't read no papers, and I don't listen to radios either. I know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber, and I don't have to read it," the Colonel declares. Soon, Ann has joined them with a phalanx of photographers to start documenting their new
populist hero, though he needs a lot of coaching, having to be reminded that he's disgusted with civilization. He thinks that means she wants "crabby guy" but it comes off looking to her as if he's trying to smell the world. She finally gets what she wants by telling him to think about an ump making a bad call. Though Meet John Doe had its origin in a story, it was written, as was Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, by Robert Riskin and part of it plays as if he's trying to impose the Deeds template. (This was so much the case that the original 1941 ad campaign read ALL AMERICA WANTS TO MEET THE "MR. DEEDS" OF 1941!) John Doe might not be suddenly rich like Longfellow Deeds, but he's similarly stifled by keepers and used by a newswoman who comes to fall for him. Despite this, for the early portion of the film, Meet John Doe works remarkably well when it's Stanwyck's Ann leading the way. The supporting cast also helps — and they have to late in the overlong film, which runs a full two hours — when instead of just telling a story of political corruption and yellow journalism, Capra and Riskin opt to make it a warning against fascism in America and, on top of that, try to equate John Doe with Jesus Christ.
It had been quite some time since I'd seen Meet John Doe and my memories of it had never placed it as one of my favorite Capras. I probably wouldn't have bothered with an anniversary tribute if it weren't part of Barbara Stanwyck's 1941 triumvirate. She's very good here, even better in Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve and magnificent in her crowning achievement for 1941 — as Sugarpuss O'Shea in Hawks' Ball of Fire which featured a screenplay by Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett from a story by Wilder and Thomas Monroe. Ball of Fire was the role that earned her an Oscar nomination that year and also displayed much better comic chemistry between her and Gary Cooper than you'll find in Meet John Doe. Stanwyck does give a great turn in Meet John Doe, especially in the film's early scenes where she's a schemer, plotting to keep her job and inventing the entire John Doe scam. Perhaps it's best exemplified when Ann and Connell are summoned to D.B. Norton's estate to meet with him. Connell has grown jittery and thinks they should pull
the plug on the John Doe fraud while Ann suggests to D.B. to make it even bigger by using his radio network to have John appear and speak to the public in person for the first time, making the phenomenon metastasize. Norton, played as an ethics-free tycoon as only the great Edward Arnold could, dismisses Connell so he can speak with Ann alone. "What do you want out of this?" he asks her. "Money," Ann responds bluntly. "Glad to hear someone admit it for a change," D.B. smiles, telling her that she should work directly with him from now on and if she plays
her cards right, she'll never have to worry about money again. What's even more interesting about Stanwyck's performance is that she doesn't immediately fall for Cooper's Long John Willoughby. For the longest time, Ann falls for the John Doe that doesn't exist, the one she created from thin air, so she's really engaged in a form of self love. The only times in the film when Stanwyck runs into trouble as an actress is when the script lets her down by suddenly turning Ann into mush by having her fall for Cooper and begging him not to kill himself when things turn sour. The screenplay forces her to try, through tears, to tout the idea that Cooper's John Doe is "like the first John Doe" — Jesus. That'd be a hard sell for any actress, even one of Stanwyck's caliber. Besides, as much as I worship Stanwyck, I've never thought she was at her best when playing vulnerable. She's greatest when she's fun or mean or manipulative, whether comically as in Ball of Fire or deadly as in Double Indemnity or even a later film such as the Western The Violent Men.
As I said, it had been a long time since I watched Meet John Doe before I looked at it again for this piece and, while I enjoyed the bulk of it, even when it lays its harmless but corny message on a little thick, when it takes its turn toward deifying the Cooper character and transforming Arnold's character from a tycoon who wants to gain political power into someone who practically wants to be an American Hitler, I almost canceled plans for writing this piece altogether. I decided to perservere, but this shouldn't be mistaken as the usual anniversary tribute I write for a film because I've got to be much more critical of it than I expected to be. The screenplay truly is a mess. Early on, it creates the conflict between Norton and the governor character, but then after two scenes, the governor vanishes from the
movie, never to be heard from again. Despite that hole, the film rolls along nicely for awhile when everyone wants to use John Doe for their own selfish purposes and though Cooper gives a performance even stiffer than usual, it's nice when Willoughby finds himself genuinely conflicted about what to do or who has his best interests at heart. Brennan steals most of the scenes out from under him just basically doing the usual Brennan shtick. When John does take to the radio, his speech does have its moments, such as when he suggests (though Ann wrote his speech) that even the average guy "has a streak of larceny in his
heart." Spontaneously, his message of "love your neighbor" resonates and people start John Doe Clubs which Norton capitalizes on to sponsor more of them across the country to use as the start of a third party. However, he's not planning to challenge the Democrats and the Republicans with a normal independent party but a John Doe Party, at whose convention Norton expects John to endorse D.B. as the party's candidate for president. I guess that's why the governor part of the story vanishes. However, as Norton plots with other political bosses and
labor leaders about how he would win (and why they would back this plan is beyond me) Norton complains that the government has been making too many "concessions" and America must be ruled by an "iron hand." Huh? Where in the hell did this come from? John hears it though and plans to expose D.B.'s plan, but Norton instead exposes John as a phony, figuring if he can't use the John Doe Clubs for his nefarious purposes, he'll destroy them instead. It's where we get our first flat-out Christ allusion as Connell says, "Chalk up another one to the Pontius Pilates." Of course, all the John Doe fans turn on him and Willoughby decides he will kill himself by jumping off City Hall on Christmas Eve to resurrect the John Doe Clubs. It all goes as predictably and plays as maudlin as you'd expect. When people speak of Frank Capra with derision, Meet John Doe may be why. The man did make some great films though: It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life being the very best with some other good ones as well. Meet John Doe does not belong on the list.However, Meet John Doe contains one scene that displays the ability of a good actor to use his talent to overcome hackneyed material. Before John has learned the truth about what D.B. Norton is plotting, The Bulletin's managing editor Henry Connell (James Gleason), already drunk, sneaks John away from his bodyguards to take to a bar. He notes that John is too young to have served in the Great War (not renamed
World War I yet), but that as soon as the U.S. entered, he signed up at the age of 17. His father did as well and they both ended up in the same unit. Connell saw his father killed, right before his eyes. Connell got out of the war without a scratch, just an ulcer, which reminds him that he shouldn't be drinking booze. "I should be drinking milk, you know. This stuff is poison," he tells John as he orders another. "Yes, sir. I'm a sucker for this country. I'm a sucker for the Star Spangled Banner and I'm a sucker for this country. I like what we got here! I like it! A guy can say what he wants — and do what he wants — without having a bayonet shoved through his belly," Connell tells John. He then goes on to talk about people who would like to see what makes it great destroyed. He doesn't name Norton, but John guesses that is who he is speaking about. "Lighthouses, John. Lighthouses in a foggy world," he says. A subtle speech it ain't, but the veteran character actor Gleason pulls it off while playing (and most tellingly, not overplaying) drunk. It's a triumph of man over material. Unfortunately, there's not enough power to overcome all the material in Meet John Doe.Tweet
Labels: 40s, Capra, Cooper, Hawks, Movie Tributes, Oscars, P. Sturges, Stanwyck, W. Brennan, Wilder
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
It's easy to make fun of somebody if you don't care how much you hurt them
By Edward Copeland
In the early years of the Academy Awards, repeat winners happened not only frequently but often soon after previous wins, sometimes even consecutively. For example, Frank Capra took home the directing prize three times, winning every other year from 1934 through 1938, starting with the great It Happened One Night and ending with You Can't Take It With You. The second Oscar between the two came for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, which marks its 75th anniversary today, and was the only film of the three not to also win best picture. More importantly, the movie proved to be the wonderful Jean Arthur's breakthrough.
Now Capra has a reputation as the corniest of filmmakers, a reputation I believe is a bit unfair when you look at the darkness in some of his films such as It's a Wonderful Life or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or especially at the more unusual titles in his filmography such as The Miracle Woman or The Bitter Tea of General Yen, both starring Barbara Stanwyck. Of the films that do lead to that reputation though, Mr. Deeds might be one that's near the head of that pack. Not that Mr. Deeds isn't a good film, even if it isn't up to the level of the best Capras such as It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith and Wonderful Life, but it still holds up today as a fairly solid entertainment, if it's a tad overlong.
The story begins as we see a car take an explosive plunge off a mountain road followed by a newspaper headline announcing the death of financier Matthew Semple in Italy. In New York, his attorneys,
led by John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille), has a team of investigators including press agent Cornelius Cobb (the delightful Lionel Stander, known to generations decades later as Max on the '70s TV show Hart to Hart), scouring the world for Semple's heir. This part seems a little confusing because apparently Semple left a will that named his heir and though there are other relatives he disdained (Jameson Thomas, Mayo Methot), it would seem all they had to do was find him, even if Matthew Semple himself had never met him. Finally, they connect the dots and identify him as one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), resident of Mandrake Falls, Vt. Soon, Cedar, Cobb and the crew are en route to meet the new rich man. Cedar, head of his firm Cedar, Cedar, Cedar and Buddington, finds himself particularly anxious to get a feeling for Deeds because he hopes to woo power of attorney from him to use part of the fortune he's inherited to help pay off some of the firm's debts.
When the New Yorkers arrive in Mandrake Falls, they soon realize they aren't in Manhattan anymore. The station agent (Spencer Charters) turns out to be a very friendly chap, but people in Mandrake Falls have a tendency to be so literal that it takes awhile to get out of them the information you seek. Cedar's party get him to admit he knows Longfellow Deeds and that Deeds is very friendly and will talk to anybody but it takes about the third try, thanks to Cobb, to ask the correct question and ask if the man could take them to where Deeds resides, to which the station agent wonders why they didn't just say that in the first place. Of course, being literal, the man takes them to Deeds' home, but he also knew they wouldn't find Deeds there then because they didn't ask specifically to be taken to Deeds and are greeted only by his housekeeper (Emma Deems). They ask her if Deeds might be married, but she tells them no, he's waiting to rescue a lady in distress. Fortunately, the wait to meet Deeds
himself isn't too terribly long and Longfellow Deeds finally walks in the door (and grabs his tuba, seemingly out of habit). Cedar explains to him that Matthew Semple has left him his fortune and wonders if he knows how he's related. Deeds says that his mother's maiden name was Semple and he thinks he might have been his uncle. He then learns the amount: $20 million. That's quite a lot, he says. "It'll do in a pinch," Cobb says. Out of curiosity, they ask Deeds what he does and he informs them that he writes poems for postcards for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, etc. They tell him they need him to go back to New York with them to make all the arrangements, but Deeds already makes noises about how he doesn't need all that money and he'll probably give it away. Cobb asks the housekeeper what she thinks about her boss getting $20 million, but she's more concerned about how many people are staying for lunch. Deeds recommends they stay, just to try her orange layer cake.
Mandrake Falls gives their newly wealthy son a huge sendoff — so big that the New York delegation loses Deeds and the train already has arrived. Finally they spot him. It seems he's playing his tuba with the band for the last time. When he gets on the train, he looks rather forlorn, but Cedar tries to reassure that he has nothing to worry about in regard to the fortune. Deeds tells him it's not the money that he's fretting about — he just hopes the band can find another tuba player. While Deeds is en route to New York, the wife of the other Semple henpecks her sniveling husband to do whatever possible to get what's rightfully theirs, even if Matthew Semple hated his guts. The size of Semple's mansion leaves Deeds in awe, though Cedar and the rest keep him so occupied, he fears he won't get to see sites such as Grant's Tomb and the Statue of Liberty, which he really wants to since he is in New York. Once he is in town, the newspapers salivate at the chance to cover this new millionaire and MacWade (George Bancroft), the editor of one newspaper, gathers his best reporters
in his office to tell them they have to get to the bottom of this Longfellow Deeds and make him a sensation. Among the reporters listening to the pitch is MacWade's shining star, Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Bennett (Jean Arthur), who spends most of the scene playing with a string which I think could be a yo-yo, but couldn't tell for sure. She promises him a front page story if as a reward she receives a raise and a month of paid vacation. MacWade agrees and Louise, known as Babe to her fellow reporters, takes the assignment, having been clued in to the idea that Deeds longs to find a woman in distress. Back at the mansion, Cedar continues to try to get Deeds to hire him as do many others. Deeds seems puzzled as to why so many people offer to work for him for nothing. One lawyer named Hallor (Charles Lane) does seek something, though Cedar tries to get him thrown out. He tells Deeds he represents Matthew Semple's common-law wife and that a child is involved and that entitles her to a third of the estate. Deeds thinks that's reasonable and adds up to about $7 million — until Hallor says he's willing to settle for $1 million. That convinces Deeds that if he's willing to take that much less than he's owed, he must be a fraud and physically tosses him out. Cedar tells him that's why he needs to hire him — to protect him from people like that, but Deeds says he hasn't decided if he's hiring him yet.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town wasn't just the breakthrough role for the delightful Jean Arthur, who hadn't made much of an impression before that, it also was a lucky break that she got the role in the first place. Originally, Capra wanted Carole Lombard to play the part but at the last minute, Lombard opted to make My Man Godfrey instead. In fact, Mr. Deeds being made when it was was an accident as well. Capra had planned for Lost Horizon to be his next film, but Ronald Colman had other commitments, so he moved Mr. Deeds up. Thank goodness for fate because what a less rich cinematic world we'd have if Arthur hadn't received that break and been able to delight us as much as she would. Her character Babe assumes the false identity of Mary Dawson and after Deeds sneaks out (having to lock his bodyguards in a room) she fakes a fainting spell in front of the mansion so Longfellow can come to the rescue. He takes her to a restaurant where writers and poets supposedly congregate, unaware she has photographers tailing them.
The poet in Deeds keeps looking for fellow writers and the waiter directs him to a table full of them, all of whom seem intent on making fun of him and Deeds knows they are doing it. In particular, one of his favorite poets, Brookfield (Eddie Kane), seems intent on trying to treat Longfellow as a rube. "I think your poems are swell Mr. Brookfield, but I'm disappointed by you," Deeds tells him, to no apparent effect. "I know I must look funny to you, but maybe if you went to Mandrake Falls, you'd look funny to us, only nobody would laugh at ya and make you feel ridiculous." He also tells him that if it weren't Miss Dawson being present, he'd bump their heads together, but she says she doesn't mind and Deeds proceeds to pummel the poets, only he misses one. Morrow (a hilarious bit by Walter Catlett) comes to him begging for a hit on the chin. "What a magnificent displacement of smugness. You've added 10 years to my life," a very drunken Morrow tells Deeds and proceeds to tell him all the things he should show him in the world, constantly
starting to tip backward and having Deeds pull him back upright by his tie. "You hop aboard my magic carpet and I'll show you sights that you've never seen before," Morrow tells him, suggesting they go on a binge and Deeds, who has never touched alcohol in his life, agrees. Needless to say, it gives Babe one helluva story for the paper, where she christens him Cinderella Man and tells of him feeding doughnuts to a horse and when asked why, Deeds saying he was seeing how many the horse would eat before asking for coffee. When he wakes up with a hangover the next morning, his butler Walter (Raymond Walburn) tells him he had quite a bender, but Deeds denies it, saying that Morrow said they were only going on a binge, they never got to a bender. He asks him to get Mary's number out of his pants, but Walter says he can't because he came home without pants. Deeds finds that unbelievable: If he was running around the streets without pants, the police would have picked him up. Walter informs him that it was the police who brought him home. Cornelius brings him the paper, telling him he can't go around punching people like he did at the restaurant. "Sometimes it's the only solution," Deeds insists.
Eventually, with Cedar getting nowhere getting his hands on Deeds' money, he decides to represent the other relatives and try to get Longfellow declared insane, especially after a down-on-his-luck farmer (John Wray) comes into the mansion with a gun and then breaks down and it gives Deeds the idea to give away his fortune to people who apply for farm land and tend to it with equipment he buys for them and, if they produce, they own it after three years. Meanwhile, Cornelius learns Babe's true identity AFTER Deeds has proposed and she's begun to feel so guilty, she's quit her job because she's fallen for him. It's really the back half where the sentimentality overwhelms the comedy, but it's still good and you do get the Faulkner sisters (Margaret McWade, Margaret Seddon) to come from Mandrake Falls to testify that Deeds always has been "pixilated," but then who among us isn't pixilated?
Cooper does have some good moments, but he's stiff as he often is in just about any film he made, though it did earn him his first Oscar nomination, but with Arthur and the great comic supporting cast, especially Stander, it doesn't interfere. Probably his most timely speech comes in his sanity hearing when he asks why should he be considered crazy if he'd rather see the money go to be people who need it. "It's like I'm out in a big boat, and I see one fellow in a rowboat who's tired of rowing and wants a free ride, and another fellow who's drowning. Who would you expect me to rescue? Mr. Cedar — who's just tired of rowing and wants a free ride? Or those men out there who are drowning? Any 10-year-old child will give you the answer to that," Deeds tells the judge. Sounds like an accurate depiction of today's corporate and wealthy-favored government to me. Capra's pacing lags at time, but he does have some nice directing touches, my favorite being when Deeds is institutionalized and Cornelius urges him to fight. Capra films the entire scene in darkness with the actor silhouetted and begins it with a nice zoom.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a lesser Capra, but it remains worthwhile even if he lays its message of the value of honesty, sincerity and decency on a bit too heavily.
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Labels: 30s, Capra, Cooper, Jean Arthur, Lombard, Movie Tributes, Oscars, R. Colman, Stanwyck
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Monday, March 21, 2011
It's the Same Dame
By Eddie Selover
She takes a bite from an apple, then wonders aloud what would happen if she “clunked him on the head with it,” just before dropping it on him a three-story height. She sticks out her foot to trip him, and when he gets back up, berates him for damaging her shoe. She cozies up to him so her crooked associates can cheat him at cards. She calls him by a babyish nickname he loathes. She blatantly cock teases him, and when he’s bashfully choking on his own desire, tells him “you should be kept on a leash!” Later, she has him tripping over himself without any help, as he takes a series of embarrassing stumbles in front of his entire family. Finally, she marries him, and then on the honeymoon coldly and ritually humiliates him sexually. Mustering up the tatters of his shredded self respect, he leaves…and takes his final inexorable fall into a huge oozing pit of mud.
It’s a love story.
It’s also a romantic comedy, maybe the greatest, and it premiered 70 years ago today.
The Lady Eve, written and directed by Preston Sturges at the peak of his powers in 1941, is not a boy-meets-girl story. It’s a Paradise Lost story, only in this case “paradise” is living in a comfortable, smug world of ignorance and illusion. A woman introduces sin into a backward young man’s life, he responds by being hurtful and unforgiving, and she makes him pay the price for his narrow-minded weakness by reappearing in a new incarnation and making him fall in love with her all over again. Despite the dazzling wit and slapstick comedy, it’s a fundamentally serious movie, starring two fundamentally serious actors — Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda.
Stars of the classic era were expected to be able to do everything, but Stanwyck and Fonda made few comedies in their long careers, and most of the others are dismal. She usually played tough lower-class women fighting for respect, and he’s remembered as a prototypical mid-century liberal hero: quiet, slow to anger, judicious, and upright. Their skill at drama gives The Lady Eve an unusual undertone of seriousness — when they wound each other, you really feel it. In most classic movies about the battle of the sexes, especially movies of the 1940s, the woman has to be tamed, subjugated, put in her place. In this movie, the man has to be stripped of his immaturity, insensitivity, and self righteousness — his unconscious belief that the woman is an extension of his own vanity. What’s remarkable is how exhilarating it is to watch that happen.
Some of it is Fonda. With his open face, drawling Midwestern speech, and lanky physical coltishness, he’s basically asking for it. There’s something vaguely infuriating about Henry Fonda; maybe it’s all that goodness. In the late '60s, he finally played a villain, in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, and it’s revelatory to see cold menace finally glaring from those blue eyes — the meanness that seemed to be there all along, buried beneath his sanctimonious blandness. In The Lady Eve, the repeated humiliations he undergoes aren’t just funny, they feel almost liberating. The air of the film is charged by the excitement of watching her slap him around. “I need him,” she murmurs at one point, staring off in the distance, “like the axe needs the turkey.”
Sturges created the script for Stanwyck, after her remarkable performance in Remember the Night, a movie he wrote (but didn’t direct) the previous year. In Remember the Night, she plays a hardened shoplifter who gradually rediscovers her own humanity and goodness during a Christmas holiday in the heartland. It sounds terrible, but it’s beautifully written and Stanwyck makes the character’s evolution utterly convincing and deeply touching. She makes you feel how precarious vulnerability is, and how much strength it takes to maintain it. In The Lady Eve, the same dynamic is at work, but the balance is shifted. We feel the tenderness, shame, and hurt feelings underneath her tough exterior. She’s a grown up: she shows how idealism and cynicism can reside in the same heart in an uneasy truce. She has a wonderful little riff about her ideal man — a little short guy, a practical ideal you can find in any barber shop — that would be typical screwball-comedy dizzy-dame chatter if it weren’t for the genuine world-weariness Stanwyck and Sturges convey beneath their bright remarks.
Maybe the greatest joy of Preston Sturges is his unique, and very accurate, vision of America as a nation full of wiseasses. In his movies, the leads don’t get all the jokes; every character has something snarky to say. In
The Palm Beach Story, he gives the best line in the script to a Pullman porter (“Gentleman tipped me a dime all the way from Jacksonville to Palm Beach — she’s alone but she don’t know it.”). He loved his actors, but his sin as a director was his weakness for letting them amp up the comedy with too much shouting, running around and arm-flapping. That wild energy becomes a muted, urgent subtext in The Lady Eve. Because Stanwyck, her father and his gang are criminals moving among the rich in their world of steamships and country houses, their acerbic comments are subtle signals to each other (and us) that they’re the most trustworthy people on the screen, because they’re the most experienced, and the smartest. Watching Stanwyck take Fonda for a ride and give him the shellacking he deserves, we get to share in and enjoy that smartness.Even their tenderest love scenes contrast her hard-earned wisdom with his obtuseness: “I don’t deserve you,” he says at one point (most of his remarks are just about that fatuous), and she reveals a world of complicated self-awareness as she answers ardently “oh, but you do… if anybody ever deserved me, you do... so richly.” Most romantic comedies come down to this: will they/won’t they, and when? The Lady Eve asks more timeless questions. Will he finally see her as more than a mere appendage? Will she wise him up and make a man of him? Can love survive the loss of innocence?
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Labels: 40s, H. Fonda, Leone, Movie Tributes, P. Sturges, Stanwyck
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